


Between Us

by Remember When (scribblemyname)



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
Genre: Consensual Sex, Deathfic, Developing Relationship, Grieving, Multi, Post-MI5, Slow Build, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:26:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5698357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/Remember%20When
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan has fallen in love with Ilsa Faust and Brandt is nowhere near ready to accept that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Samuraiter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samuraiter/gifts).



> So much thanks to geckoholic for epic handholding, reassurance, enabling, and beta reading. You're the best.

_If you are captured or killed, you will be disavowed._

Jane knew that no one was coming.

She spat out blood on the cold cement floor and didn’t even move enough to clank the chains around her ankles and wrists.

They taught you in training that your job wasn’t to keep from breaking under interrogation. Every agent broke. Your job was to not break for long enough that the IMF could move around every asset you were aware of and render the entire exercise moot. She could hold on through the pain and the internal bleeding and do _that_ job.

 _I’m sorry, Ethan, Brandt,_ she thought toward the men in her mind.

At least for once, she hadn’t waited until it was too late.

 

 

 

* * *

Ethan had found her in Barcelona, but Ilsa had left him more than enough clues to do so, should he wish. He had wished, and so he was here with her now as they talked quietly, caught up without giving almost anything away.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Ethan said after a while. He spoke a little slowly, enough for Ilsa to note the hesitation in his voice and put an effort into qualifying it. 

“An ex-lover?” she asked, not really looking at him, but sipping from her glass instead.

Ethan’s voice was quiet as he answered, “Not really.”

There was another hesitation for her to pause over and digest. She looked at him, at the uncertainty in his eyes.

“A current lover,” she said softly.

He nodded, not denying it.

Ilsa found herself unsurprised, if also considering him an unlikely candidate for such an arrangement. “Do you always share your lovers?”

“Not always.” Ethan leaned forward beside her, kept his eyes on hers. “Just him.”

A man.

Ilsa considered that, set down her glass, and asked more seriously, “Where?”

* * *

The invitation came from Ethan in the usual manner, obscure and difficult if not impossible to trace. Not like Brandt didn’t approve. He hid the round trip ticket in his jacket pocket, refrained from sighing in a meeting that had dragged on three extra hours, even produced a small, polite smile when attention came his way from the Secretary, and started mentally counting down the hours before his departure and how he was supposed to make it considering his rather full afternoon.

Trust Ethan to not always think of such things.

* * *

It was late afternoon by the time Brandt made his way from work, changed into comfortable travel clothes, and grabbed the go bag he always kept because he may have been Chief Analyst and tied to headquarters more often than allowed into the field, but he was also skilled in the field and an IMF agent when it all boiled down, so he had the gear and the tools and the habits that went with that.

It was early evening by the time he was making his way through the airport, casually handing in his ticket, and finding his seat aboard the airplane. He had enough reports to go through to make the downtime worthwhile.

It was night by the time he was disembarking and picking up the keys for his reserved car rental. Ethan had thoughtfully picked out something with good gas mileage, better tires, and the ability to handle a high speed chase if necessary but a fairly unlikely pick if one _intended_ to engage in high speed chases. Just the right compromise between contingency and Brandt’s blood pressure.

Trust Ethan to think of such things.

* * *

He found the small vacation house easily enough by checking the map in the glove compartment and didn’t bother trying to work out how Ethan had stashed it there. The place was nice, had a good view of the beach and a balcony off the backside of it, letting Brandt know off the bat this was hardly a safehouse and most likely the entire trip wouldn’t qualify as work-related. They never did get enough real downtime.

He came in quietly enough, but had no expectation Ethan wouldn’t hear him. It was a small house, if comfortable and airy, and those agent instincts never actually turned off.

“Brandt?”

Final confirmation came in the sound of Ethan’s voice coming from the back bedroom.

Brandt headed down the hallway and set his bag down inside the door. There was one other visible occupant of the room, who had paused in putting up her hair when he came in and now studied him with a carefully observant expression that gave away little of what she was feeling.

Perhaps this was work-related? Brandt considered her presence, a little puzzled. “Ilsa Faust. We didn’t properly meet before, did we?”

“Not really.” She finished her hair and dropped her hands. She was wearing a soft sweater and casual pants, dressed for comfort and the evening. Like this wasn’t work-related for her either.

Brandt didn’t quite like the way this picture was adding up. “Ethan?” he said after another long moment.

Ilsa turned as Ethan padded out of the adjacent bathroom area, face half shaved, just enough to show Brandt he was present and wasn’t ready to come out, then went back in, leaving Brandt rubbing a hand over the back of his neck in exasperation and simply grabbing his bag to settle in.

He gave Ethan the benefit of the doubt for a few minutes, hung up the button-up shirt he might end up needing, focusing on the action and the back of the closet, not the woman quietly watching him while she settled down on the foot of the bed. Ethan would explain what she was doing here, and it wouldn’t be—

The water stopped running.

Brandt turned around to see Ethan framed in the doorway between the two rooms.

“Glad to see you made it.”

“Carter’s missing, not dead,” Brandt said abruptly, benefit of the doubt swept aside by the cautious look in Ethan’s eyes. Caution meant both of them knew exactly what this was about.

Ethan looked at him, jaw set. “For eighteen months.”

“What? So you wanted me to give up on you coming back, is that it? Six months, Ethan, with the CIA and the Syndicate trying to kill you!”

“You _knew_ where I was.”

“No, I didn’t.” Brandt glared at him. “If I’d known where you were, I would have been obligated to divulge that, then I would have gotten a front row seat to watching them shoot you down.”

He’d about had it up to here with Ethan’s recklessness so many times over, but he knew how to keep plausible deniability on the table. Jane was just another flavor of the same, another IMF agent too good at staying alive against impossible odds to rule out yet.

Brandt looked at Ilsa again, observing, waiting out the storm as she put two and two together of all the little pieces Ethan _hadn’t_ told her.

“I didn’t do anything,” Ethan started to say, a legitimate protest because even with the missing piece between them, they were still together, still a part of the thing they’d started, and both of them still respected that.

But Brandt could read between the lines too. “Except fall in love with her.”

He counted Ethan’s breaths by the way his chest rose and fell a little too much. He had. Ethan had gone and fallen in love with Ilsa Faust, and Brandt was nowhere near ready to accept that.

* * *

Ilsa looked between the two men warily. Ethan hadn’t properly prepared Brandt for why he’d asked Ilsa to come out and meet him, and there were clues there to a history she wasn’t sure had ever been put to rest. There wasn’t room for her here.

 _’Run away with me,’_ she’d offered Ethan because she knew him, they’d understood each other. Now, she couldn’t help but think they’d only know the pieces necessary to do the job they did together.

She stepped out into the hall, feeling the weight of both of their gazes follow her out. She ignored the sensation, heavy between her shoulder blades, and moved on to the small kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.

Carter. Missing.

Ilsa’s senses prickled alertly under her skin. She looked up. Brandt stood on the other side of the counter, looking more weary than any of the times she’d previously seen him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She smiled, brief and small, more regretful than any other emotion she could name. “I am too.”

“Do you want me to drive you back?” he asked after another tense moment.

Ilsa tilted her head, faint question.

“Ethan wants you to stay,” Brandt answered simply.

Ilsa stared at him for a long moment. He had managed what Agent Hunt had so easily, so early as well. He knew what she had decided.

She had decided to leave.

“Very well,” she said.

* * *

“What was she like, Agent Carter?” Ilsa asked somewhere along the long drive out.

For a moment, it almost bothered him that she would ask that, but Brandt could acknowledge the question wasn’t altogether inappropriate under the circumstances, nor was Ilsa’s interested, listening expression less than respectful of the topic she was treading into.

The analyst in him wanted to take over, rattle off her key physical details, maybe her performance criteria evals as though she merely _was_ another agent to him, but this was Jane Carter he was thinking of. Brash, gorgeous, shy, strong, and able to temper that fierceness into a coolheaded mission execution when she needed to.

“Strong,” he said at last. “A bit like you. She was good at what she did.” But she wasn’t nearly as good at lying as Ilsa, at influencing men in the direction she wanted, able to use their perception of her innocence or guilt against them. 

For all that Brandt was certain Ilsa could be untrustworthy still if she wished, he also didn’t think she’d instigated this thing with Ethan, or at least he hadn’t been manipulated into it. “So tell me about Agent Hunt. What is it you see in him?”

Ilsa smiled, swung her head to look out the window, as if she’d already figured out where the conversation was headed.

It wasn’t like Brandt had been subtly changing the subject.

“He was our ally.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t just leave him to die.”

“Especially when he was so valuable to your overall mission,” Brandt pointed out, unfairly perhaps, but it wasn’t inaccurate either when all the stories had come spilling out.

“I had leave to kill him,” she replied calmly.

That hadn’t been something he’d been expecting. It caught him off guard and for some reason, that was what tipped him over into understanding a little of Ethan’s feelings about her.

“But you didn’t,” Brandt said softly.

Ilsa didn’t answer. She leaned her head back against the seat and looked at him, waiting out whatever was going through his head.

“Jane,” Brandt said finally, “is the most headstrong, caring person I’ve met. Except maybe Ethan. She likes a solid target in front of her, and then she likes to hit it.”

Ilsa smiled softly, a faint curve he could easily miss if he wasn’t trying to keep her in his peripheral vision even while drove.

He could see why Ethan might like to talk to her. She was a good listener.

“I hope I didn’t presume,” he said suddenly. He gestured generally at the car. He’d offered to drive her away and didn’t even think that it was because he hadn’t wanted her there.

But she answered simply, “No. I was leaving.”

* * *

When Brandt returned, they didn’t talk about Ilsa. They didn’t talk about Jane. They didn’t say anything at all, just crawled under the covers to lie back to back together in a semblance of proximity.

There used to be another person between them whenever they took downtime for personal reasons. In a way, she was still between them now.

* * *

They didn’t often get downtime together. Not that there wasn’t time between missions, but rarely could all three of them get away from everything and find their way into one room with one bed big enough to bother with and manage to detach Brandt from his phone.

Jane raised her eyebrows at Ethan when she came in. Most of Brandt’s clothes were on the floor and she could hear his voice coming from around the corner.

Ethan just gave her a mild headshake, and she rolled her eyes and sighed. At least field agents left their work in the field. Generally. Usually. Unless those field agents were Ethan Hunt on the trail of interconnected terrorist incidents he swore were all coming out of one group.

She went ahead and hung up her jacket in the closet and yanked down her ponytail to comb out her hair. “Have fun without me?”

“I generally don’t call getting blown up fun,” Ethan corrected.

“But you did,” she finished for him, shot him a grin. She knew she’d hit the mark correctly when he smiled back, that faint concession in his eyes.

Brandt stalked in and set his phone on the nightstand before dropping into the bed. “I hate Washington.”

Jane grinned and put her earrings beside his phone. “Everything reinstated yet?”

Ethan just chuckled and Brandt didn’t bother to answer.

“Who’s the new Secretary?” Ethan asked. Jane watched him pull his shirt off over his head and drop it perfunctorily in the neat little growing heap of dirty clothes.

“There isn’t one,” Brandt groaned facedown into the pillow. He turned over on his back. “Not until they get around to appointing one, which they might not do if this hearing doesn’t go well.”

The hearing. She exchanged a look with Ethan. He shrugged.

Ghost Protocol hadn’t gone well for the IMF, reinstatement aside. With no Secretary to reassure Washington of the details of what had happened, there was little anyone could do to make their involvement in the incidents regarding the Kremlin and a nuclear warhead nearly blowing up part of the US look any better than a worst case scenario.

“That’s not going to hold up operations, is it?” Jane paused in her own undressing to ask. For all she teased Ethan, she cared just as much about her work in the field as Ethan did. The IMF was needed in the world they lived in.

“You know these hearings take forever.” Brandt shook his head. “In the meantime, missions must go on.”

Jane settled on the bed beside him to stroke fingers through his hair and over his bare shoulder.

Brandt sighed and rolled over into the touch, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pressed his face into her stomach.

She smiled, hands curling into his hair. He was always so tense, not entirely a surprise considering his job playing politics in the aftermath, but it was nice to take a few moments out to relax a little together.

Suddenly, she felt the heat of his breath as he nudged up her shirt and kissed the skin beneath. It made her own breath catch as she flushed. She ran her fingers along the back of his neck, leaned down and kissed him.

He hummed contentedly, rolled over, and tugged her gently by the hips until she’d settled on top of him, comfortable and warm. Jane let a soft laugh bubble up and ran her hands over his chest. Not bad for an analyst.

“Am I invited to this party?” Ethan’s voice said, way too close to her ear for where she’d last noticed him. Faint amusement colored his tone.

She leaned back with a playful, “You’re late,” and felt herself stop against his chest, his arms slide around under hers.

Brandt chuckled as Ethan pushed back her hair and kissed her neck, pushing her forward toward Brandt. At the same time, Brandt sat up enough to kiss her mouth, pull her closer, and she was caught between them, hot in all the right ways and places, sweat forming between their bodies.

“Get in the bed,” she ordered.

Ethan laughed and obeyed to mumbled complaints from Brandt that they were too heavy.

They’d done this before and didn’t have too much trouble settling in with Jane caught between them, Ethan behind and Brandt sitting up just enough to wrap around her easily and fall into sync with Ethan as they kissed her, pressed open mouths to her shoulders, her chest, hands sliding over hips and each other’s hands. 

“You’re going to smother me,” she managed when she caught a breath.

But then again, she didn’t mind and neither did they.

Brandt was getting hard beneath her, pressing into her thigh, and she could feel Ethan pulling her up slightly to fit between the two of them. She ground down into the sensation and groaned, hot need burning under her skin. She pushed closer to Brandt, skin sliding on skin and heard his soft huffed breath, trying to stay in control, and there was Ethan close behind her, cursing quietly against the nape of her neck as he started a rhythm of push, pull, gasp, and moan. They weren’t even inside her yet, and she could already feel pleasure beginning to spark.

“How do you want to do this?” Ethan asked, voice quiet in her ear. She felt like she could barely hear it over her heart pounding in her ears.

“Both sides,” she answered.

“Good answer,” Brandt murmured into her neck, and she moaned her pleasure at it, let him bite down gently on her skin.

She could feel them both underneath her, hard and hot, and then they were fumbling with condoms and lube, working around their position, Ethan taking more time to prep her than Brandt, small huffs of laughter until they were ready and sliding into her.

Jane pressed her face into Brandt’s shoulder, feeling the burn as Ethan worked his way in slowly behind, taking turns with Brandt pushing in deeper. She liked having them both inside. She liked it when one slid in her entrance, and the other gave her anal, but it was intense, and she closed her eyes as she rocked in tiny movements back and forth until they were all the way in and her body had started to adjust.

When she was ready, she leaned back and pulled Ethan close enough to kiss his jaw and murmur, “More.”

Brandt pushed forward, almost startling with how quickly, then Ethan was moving too, and her thoughts were reduced to the wordless sound and feel and scent of agreement. More, more, more...

* * *

Afterward, they lay tangled together, breathless. Jane curled her head against Brandt’s shoulder and drew Ethan’s arm around her. “We should do this more often,” she said lightly.

Ethan hummed what sounded like agreement.

Brandt answered, breath still ragged, “Yeah.”

There were some things they could all agree on.

* * *

Brandt woke abruptly into the dark and shot up straight out of the covers. There was body heat close, but it wasn’t against him, warm skin on skin, and he stumbled out of the bed to lean both arms against the open window. He gulped in deep draughts of the cool breeze seeping in through the screen.

“Brandt.”

Ethan’s voice was quiet, low, but not soft. Never that. Not for Brandt instead of Jane. It wasn’t something Brandt had ever disliked about him.

He didn’t answer. He just focused on breathing, keeping his gaze steady on the pinpricks of bright stars until he felt a hand, rough and warm on his shoulder.

He pushed against it reflexively, but Ethan wasn’t having it, just tightened his grip, waiting until Brandt slumped against him, head leaning against Ethan’s shoulder. It had once been easy to do this, to find comfort outside of himself.

“She’s not dead, Ethan,” he said roughly.

Ethan didn’t answer, but his arm slipped under Brandt’s, holding him more strongly.

“She’s not dead.”

* * *

Ethan came awake at the sound of a phone. Brandt’s phone. He felt more than heard Brandt’s groan before he rolled out of bed and snatched up the phone on the way.

“This is Brandt.”

Ethan watched him for a moment, saw the sleep in Brandt’s eyes slowly give way to sharp alertness, followed by an all too familiar sigh.

“Understood, Mr. Secretary. I’ll be in shortly.” Brandt hung up the phone. He stared at the wall for a moment, throat working. Finally he turned back to Ethan and said, “You might want to be there for this.”

“The new Secretary...” Ethan said leadingly.

Brandt gave him a look that meant, Don’t start.

Ethan shrugged it off easily, brows flickering upward in question.

“He doesn’t like you much,” Brandt said briefly. “Try not to antagonize him.”

* * *

It was an understatement, but a forgivable one. Brandt didn't feel like explaining the complicated way the new Secretary viewed Ethan or their entire last operation against the Syndicate, to say nothing of Ilsa Faust.

Ilsa.

Brandt's hands paused on his shirt. He seemed to bump into her at every turn now that he knew just how wrapped up in her Ethan had become. It wasn't something he'd expected. It wasn't...

Ethan had accepted the MIA, likely killed as a definitive KIA, grieving for Jane by throwing himself even harder into work while Brandt refused to believe in the cirrcumstantial evidence surrounding her disappearance that seemed to imply her death. It was just as possible she was alive, held against her will, and there weren't any rules that let Brandt go and _look_ for her when Ethan wouldn't.

"What does he want?" Ethan's voice cut into Brandt's train of thought.

Brandt finally shrugged. "We've got a mission."

* * *

"Missions usually involve gathering intelligence," Ethan pointed out, "or acting on it."

"I need what you know," Brandt said easily, head buried in papers and files that Ethan probably wouldn't have minded digging into had it been his investigation rather than an analysis dropped in _Brandt's_ lap and generously shared.

Brandt finally looked up from the loads of paperwork and told him, "Just focus on the danger this is to our borders, and you should find plenty of potential missions in it to keep you interested."

Ethan gave him a narrow-eyed look for that. He wasn't a child or bored rookie, but he picked up a file as Brandt had wanted. "Why do you need what I know?" he asked.

"This data came out of the Syndicate and the information you gathered along the way that the CIA never utilized properly."

"The Syndicate's over," Ethan pointed out.

Brandt just shot him a brow-raised look. "So that's what the field agents think."

* * *

The Syndicate had been founded as an offshoot of British Intelligence and between Ethan's research and the agency's aftermath cleanup and interrogation efforts, the IMF had gathered a rich store of information about Syndicate informants, operations, and agents, but also a surprising amount of intelligence about other nations considered a threat or problem for the UK and, by extension, UK allies.

They kept at it, and Ethan soon proved his worth to the project and why he'd been dragged into it. So much of the intel had come from his unsanctioned investigation and he had been the first to put together the pieces before the temporary disbandment of the IMF. He knew many of the faces and situations they dug out of the files and was able to keep up with Brandt's crossreferencing of threats and problem networks.

Nevertheless, there were things they didn't know that would require legwork to find out. Or someone else who had been there.

“You want to ask Ilsa,” Brandt said, skeptical but resigned tone, barely even a question.

“She’s former British intelligence," Ethan reminded him, and fully qualified to make sense of the data, besides having decent vetting behind her. "If she even got out.”

“She did her part, didn’t she say?” But Brandt said it absently, like he doubted her retirement as much as Ethan did. He rubbed his hand over his face and sighed deeply. “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine.”

“Is this you telling me this or Chief Analyst of the IMF?”

Brandt turned around from the window. “I’m the same person, Ethan.”

He looked at Ethan sharply, all hurt eyes and wounded expression. When had Ethan stopped seeing him?

He turned away again, squinting into the light coming through the window.

“Brandt.” Ethan softened his voice, just a little.

But Brandt just glanced back then out again.

The silence stretched a moment too long, then snapped. Ethan dropped his hand to the file, fished a phone from his pocket, and walked away, already beginning to dial.

* * *

"Agent Brandt," Ilsa greeted, voice quiet and professional, even if it it held that faint knowing warmth he wasn't sure he welcomed.

"Ilsa." He nodded as politely, then added, almost a concession, "Just Brandt is fine. Thanks for helping us out."

"It was my mission," she said, mouth flattening into a look that hinted regret.

"You did your part," Ethan interjected with, gently. He had always known when to be gentle.

Brandt offered coffee and papers. "You got her here, Ethan. Don't talk her back out of it."

She reached out and accepted what he held out.

* * *

She was less fond of coffee than tea, amused but condescending about their American taste for the black brew. Brandt and Ethan would both find her in the mornings with a cup of Earl Grey in hand as she frowned over the papers, sorting with a delicate hand that had been used for decidedly undelicate tasks.

Brandt watched sometimes the looks Ethan and Ilsa exchanged, but for all the warmth in their eyes, there was no claustrophobic desire giving him regrets. They simply knew each other, worked together as easily as breathing.

It was nice enough if Brandt didn't look too closely at whatever else it meant.

* * *

They'd been holed up in an IMF-issued Washington, DC apartment, omitting on paper the relationship and leaving it as Ethan's temporary housing. Normal deliveries came to the door, there was nothing stopping them from offering takeout or anything else they wanted as if they were normal neighbors, and there was nothing particularly concerning about the doorbell ringing, even late at night. Brandt went to answer the door, and Ethan merely noted through the window that it was a delivery service, figured it to be another package from the IMF.

He was right about that.

Brandt frowned at the package, opened it to look over what looked like a report, then became very, very still.

Ethan stopped looking at the file in front of him and narrowed his eyes in question at Brandt.

He didn't even look up, didn't notice, just shoved the papers back in the envelope, and came back into the living area.

Brandt dropped the package on the table hard enough that it slid across to Ethan’s hand. He kept walking until he reached the wall and, leaning against it, slumped down until he was sitting on the floor, head tipped back, something pained in his breath and expression.

Ilsa set down her file and looked at him before turning to Ethan, question in her eyes.

Ethan picked up the envelope and pulled out the contents enough to get a good look at them. He dropped it on the table. “Who sent this?”

Brandt’s gaze flickered to Ethan’s. “The mail,” he said, slowly, hoarse sounding. “Jane…” His voice dropped off. He looked down at his hands. “Jane listed you and me as the IMF contacts if…”

But he didn’t get the rest out.

Ethan set his jaw and looked away. Another moment and he turned and went out onto the balcony, door closing lightly behind him. His breath felt tight in his chest, and he drank in the cool breeze until it felt natural to take in oxygen and let it out.

He heard the door open and close again, turned to catch Ilsa in his peripheral vision, heard her after an awkward moment.

“She’s dead,” she said quietly.

A beat of silence, only the ambient sounds of the night around them. It wasn't a question. They knew each other, knew this business. Confirmed after almost two years. Confirmed that she was really gone.

Too long after Ethan had grieved her and Brandt had not.

“Yes.”

* * *

Ethan looked back at Ilsa at last, eyes dark and full of a history of pain like this. He was hurt in a way that had far too much to do with the man inside rather than the news in that envelope.

“You can’t not be there for him,” she said softly. It was none of her business, but Ethan had put her in the middle of this, and she had agreed to be in the middle of it, even if that was before she knew about Carter.

“Like he was there for me?” Ethan said, a harsh edge to his voice.

Ilsa shook her head, not to disregard his pain, but because in the end, he couldn't simply act on it. “He’s grieving, Ethan.”

“A little late.”

“Ethan.”

She waited until he was looking at her, taking her in, to tell him, “You’ll lose him,” in her softest, most urgent tone.

For a split second, Ethan’s gaze, almost stricken, moved past her to the view of Brandt still on the floor in the living area.

As abruptly as he'd left, Ethan moved to go back inside, crossing the room quickly to reach Brandt, whose eyes tracked Ethan warily.

They stared at each other, volumes passing between their faces. Ethan sat down beside Brandt. They didn't say anything at all for a long time.

Ilsa went back to her stack of papers and notations and granted them space by pretending she was the only one in the room.

* * *

Everything hurt. Brandt pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, no words, no actions enough to drown out the memories he couldn't turn away from or the distance between Ethan and him because Ethan had believed from the beginning she was gone and Brandt hadn't, couldn't. He couldn't regret it. He couldn't not regret everything.

He'd sent her out on that mission. It was her job. She'd wanted it. He couldn't even retrieve her afterward. Disavowed, he thought bitterly.

She'd hate if he gave up anything over her now. Jane had wanted him back in the field with or without her. He had to stop thinking about it. He had to find some way to go on, but images and words swam before his eyes.

He swore softly to himself, glanced toward the liquor cabinet. He picked up another stack of photographs.

He didn't even look up when Ilsa came into his frame of view, hand gently covering his that trembled on the pages. "I'm fine," he said, even if it was obvious he was anything but.

"It's all right to grieve," she said softly, settled near him on the couch, hand returning to her side as though she were being careful with him. He didn't push her away.

"Is that right?" Brandt let words spill out of him any which way they wanted to come, didn't care what he said or what it gave away. "I almost gave up everything. She wouldn't want—" He cut himself off, words dying in his throat.

She touched him gently then, putting one palm to his cheek to cradle his face and stare into his eyes with such a look in her own, he couldn't look away.

"Do you think you're the only one?" Her voice strangled pain, more vulnerability in her eyes than he'd yet seen. Her hands wrapped around his shoulders with such warmth. It was so much like Jane and so different, he didn't ask, didn't think, just stretched out and pressed his face to her neck, holding her in a tight embrace while dry pain ached inside him.

She didn't hush him, find soothing words, but he found more comfort in her mute empathy than in anything she could have said.

* * *

It was becoming too difficult. She _had_ done enough, even with the cleanup work.

She had met Brandt, gotten to know him because of Ethan, because there was something so kindred between them, it felt like rest and something far more precious to be around him. She hadn't even been opposed to loving him.

But she wasn't like Brandt, she was like Ethan, and holding him through the pain was ripping open wounded places in her own heart she'd cauterized long ago, making her feel things she wasn't ready to.

Ethan hadn't told her why he would never walk away. Now she knew.

* * *

Brandt fell asleep in the same bed he'd slept in so many times. For the first time in a long time, he reached one arm across Ethan instead of turning away on his side.

One silent second stretched into two, then Ethan rolled over to look at him. Finally, he leaned his head against Brandt's.

* * *

In the morning, Brandt didn't smell Ilsa's usual beverage. When he found her in the kitchen, her mouth was set and a stoic, unreadable expression had settled in on her face as she washed out a glass.

He'd seen that look on her face before, for much the same reason when it all came down. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, drawing her gaze upward to meet his, "that you had to be in the middle of all this.'

She finished cleaning up without comment, and this was not like the first time. He waited her out, looked elsewhere rather than staring at her, but he wasn't entirely surprised when he found her standing directly beside him.

"Take the time you need," she said, then, "I didn't sign up to be the rebound." Her eyes softened as she looked away, thoughtful. “I could be anything, anyone at all.”

She had been someone else when Ethan had found her. She had wanted to leave the community and the work, and Brandt couldn't blame her. He wasn't sure what he wanted right now, but he wasn't about to keep her.

"You need a ride?"

Ilsa studied his face. At last, "No."

"Ilsa?"

They both looked up at Ethan, his own knowing expression mingled with uncertainty.

“I think I’ll give you two boys some time alone together.” She went to the couch and gathered her things in her arms.

Brandt hadn't even noticed them.

“You don’t have to go,” Ethan said, faint plea under his tone.

“I think I do." She smiled. "You know how to find me.”

Then she was gone.

“What did you say to her?” Ethan demanded.

Brandt sighed, shook his head, and went to grab a drink, opting for an alcoholic one.

“Does it matter? You know that woman will do whatever she wants to do no matter what. Isn’t that what you love about her?”

Ethan didn't have much he could say to that. By now, they knew each other, and Brandt knew Ethan in this. And maybe there was an edge in Brandt's voice too now. Everything still felt too raw, and he realized he didn't want to turn to Ilsa for comfort instead of Ethan.

Brandt shook his glass gently, watching the amber fluid swirl around, and managed a soft, “She’s right. She didn’t sign up to be our rebound. It’s too soon.”

“For you,” Ethan corrected.

It still stung, but it wasn't news. Brandt sighed. “Yeah for me.”

“The evidence—”

“—was circumstantial. You’re the one who taught me that. Ethan, we do the impossible.”

If only she could have done it one more time... Brandt swore and leaned against the counter to drain his glass. "Don't tell me you don't feel anything," he aimed sharply at Ethan, "because I won't believe you."

It was one thing to believe they'd lost Jane. It was another to know it.

"Brandt."

He didn't look up, even though he heard Ethan's approach.

"I don't feel nothing."

It took another minute for the words to sink in, for the truce to fill the space between them, for them to close the space between them at last.

* * *

He knew how to find her. Ethan's invitations came obscure and difficult to trace, impossible even.

Ilsa found her mouth curving upward in a smile as she ran her hand over the tickets. He hadn't come in person, but she decided that was fine too.

* * *

Was it nostalgia he'd picked a house much like the one they'd spent time together in? She didn't ask, just let Ethan invite her inside and Brandt greet her absently as though she'd merely stepped out for an errand or coffee, not walked out of their lives for months and come back with as little word as then.

Brandt was glaring swear words at his computer, working again then. Ethan was studying her face as if he could somehow read all her secrets just by looking at here.

She glanced toward the balcony, and he accepted with his own glance and the slightest nod.

"Why did you leave?" he asked after a long moment Ilsa felt no need to break.

"It was too soon," she said simply, not clarifying for whom.

While he tried to cipher out her exact meaning, Ilsa looked her fill, catching up on the past few months with her eyes. He looked good, better than when she'd left them.

“Why are you here, Ilsa?” he asked, more quietly. "Now?"

Ilsa knew he wasn't talking about his invitation to her to do just that or their standing arrangement to let him do the finding and timing. She knew that wasn't what he meant at all. “You cared whether I lived or died.”

He'd cared when she was a ghost and no one else cared at all. He let her be good when it was her duty to be an agent for the wrong side.

* * *

“You did the same,” Ethan pointed out. More than once. Twice directly, Ilsa had reached out and saved him.

She seemed to smile at the memory, then she leaned forward, resting both arms against his chest. “You’re a packaged deal, right?” She looked toward Brandt inside and Ethan followed it with his own gaze.

“Yeah.”

He looked back at Ilsa.

He thought for a moment she would kiss him, the way her eyes softened and her hand brushed gently over his jaw, but she smiled warm and reserved and turned to go inside through the balcony doors to where Brandt was sitting on the couch, head bent over too many pieces of possible threats, possible missions. He was following some of Ethan's patterns, burying himself in work to smooth over the cracks that showed far too openly.

Brandt looked up when Ilsa drifted into the room, picked up her discarded mug of tea, and settle on the couch beside him. He seemed more comfortable with her presence than resigned.

Ethan leaned in the doorway and simply watched the two of them interact for a bit.

“Are you ever going to rest?” Ilsa asked quietly, and unlike from every other person in Brandt's circle of friends, he actually heard her and bothered to answer.

“The world doesn’t.” He stared down at the files on the table.

Ilsa seemed to agree with the sentiment in her eyes, the flicker of her smile, but she said anyway, “You should if you want to continue helping it.”

“Do you?” Brandt looked up, all skeptical question written on his face, an expression quite familiar to Ethan. You're here, that look said. You're here, working, when you were going to walk away.

“I know when to stop.” She shrugged, sipped her tea.

“I suppose you do.” Brandt conceded with a nod, leaned back on the couch, his own gaze flickering briefly to Ethan. His voice dropped and softened, “Why do you stay?”

Ilsa looked at him, a moment's hesitation and aborted answer. She watched Ethan walk in slowly but spoke as if she didn't. “You understand, both of you." There were worlds of meaning in the words, in the look behind her eyes. She'd been so tired when Ethan met her, yet still doing her part toward everything while her own people pushed her back out into the cold over and over. "And you still care.”

“Plenty of people in our work do,” Brandt suggested.

“Not many,” Ilsa countered, knowing quirk of her brows.

They were all talking around each other as if they were skittish, as if the wrong word could drive each other away. “I’d say you care too much," Ethan said, staring straight at him.

Brandt just scoffed, amused. “Like you don’t.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. "I am tired."

"Then come to bed," Ilsa said quietly, and the way she said that...

Brandt studied her for a long moment. Ethan stared at her, but he couldn't deny he wanted it, so he waited with her until Brandt finally answered, "Sure."

* * *

Brandt wasn't expecting tender lovemaking, but he also wasn't expecting the firm certainty in the way Ilsa kissed first Ethan than him, or how quickly the three of them ended up naked beside the bed.

Ilsa pushed Ethan back onto the bed. straddled him, and slid forward until they were right where she wanted. Brandt was too busy leaning over to unpin her hair so it tumbled down loose around her face, and he gently ran his hands through it.

She looked up at him from under her lashes for a moment. She gestured for the condom and Brandt helped her put it on Ethan, while she slapped Ethan’s hands down playfully where they'd come up restlessly.

"Tease," he complained without much heat.

She directed at Brandt, “Have you ever taken a woman from behind?”

It had been a while and always with Ethan in the picture, but “Yes.” He knew how to do this, even if it ached briefly when he thought of how he'd learned.

She raised one eyebrow at him, and he smiled at the impatience, the command of it. It was all Ilsa, something different and pleasant. He moved behind her with the things he needed to test her with fingers and lube while she breathed a little more audibly than a moment before.

He took his time, listening to every shift in her breath until she stopped him with words in his exploration.

“Like that. There,” Ilsa ordered.

“You certainly know what you like,” Ethan commented, breath already a little ragged from Ilsa’s moving around while on him.

It _was_ familiar and all different as he pushed carefully inside her, felt Ethan pushing up from beneath them, and smelled Ilsa, felt _llsa_ arching up against him as she set a rhythm comfortable for her.

But they weren't new to this either, and at some point Brandt found his hands sliding over her hips and meeting Ethan's from below as they found each other, holding her between them and she let the push and pull of them around her overtake her own pace.

Ilsa’s head went back, and she wasn’t like Jane, all sweet noises with every sensation. She was as quiet and controlled with every motion, just a huff of breath, a tightening around them as they did something she particularly liked.

She pressed her hand over his as he found her clit and bit down on her lip. He watched her face, fascinated by everything he was seeing there, and Ethan called out both their names, and the rest became a blur of pleasure.

* * *

It was familiar, but not painfully as he'd expected when Ilsa stirred in Brandt's arms and sleepily pressed a little closer against Ethan's sleeping form. He felt the faint shift in the tension of her body and her rising alertness when she realized he was awake.

"I wondered if you'd be gone before either of us were awake," he admitted in a low voice.

Ilsa sat up, hair spilling over her shoulder and frowning at him. "Because you don't trust me." There was history there, bitterness.

"Because you're that not dependent."

She studied him for a while with that fathomless, unreadable gaze of hers, then asked, "Do you have tea?"

He looked at her puzzled, but nodded. "Earl Grey."

"In that case,"—her mouth crinkled in that soft, mysterious smile she was always giving Ethan—"I'll stay."

Brandt watched interestedly as she climbed out of the bed and buttoned one or another of their shirts over her breasts and stomach, then walked into the kitchen and put water on to heat.


End file.
